


I Looked For You

by CodenameMeretricious



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Crossing Timelines, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-The Reichenbach Fall, S3 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 20:22:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1111113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CodenameMeretricious/pseuds/CodenameMeretricious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John can travel across the multiple timelines of his own life. After Reichenbach, he searches every one for Sherlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Looked For You

**Author's Note:**

> Entry for the Sherlock Mini-Bang. Story by CodenameMeretricious, artwork by VengefulMothSlayer.

This was the wrong timeline. He’d seen Sherlock fall, heard him declare himself a fake across the phone line. But he wasn’t a fake. And he couldn’t be dead. So why couldn’t John find him? 

He’d tried to get out, but he’d remained stuck. Jumping from timeline to timeline, exploring each alternate universe since fifteen and this is where it had gotten him. Alone. Stuck in the one timeline he didn’t want to be. 

The one without Sherlock.

He blamed the bicycle. The one that had knocked him down when Sherlock fell. He was under enough physical stress already, one more physically grounding thing might have done it. Sealed his fate. 

And now it had been three years. 

Three years without Sherlock.Three years without knowing. 

Jesus, what was he to do now?

Well, for starters, get engaged.

Mary was nice. She was sweet and soft and kind and hadn’t kept thumbs in the fridge or eyeballs in the microwave. She was steady and dependable and, frankly, boring. But she was better than being alone. 

“You seem distracted,” she said one night. John didn’t know which one, where they were in the timeline for a moment. He’d stumbled into this one in his search for Sherlock and had, as he usually did, stayed for a while. Could he live life without Sherlock? 

“Do I?” he replied. He turned from the window and joined her in the kitchen, kissing her briefly before giving her a pointed smile. 

“Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet,” she laughed, nudging him out of the way as she moved about, fixing dinner. 

John chuckled. “Never,” he said. 

“Good, because the florist called and you’re not going to like the bill.” 

It went on like this. John choosing to stay because having Mary was at least having someone. But even when they were together, when Mary was warm beside him and wholly alive, he felt off. He felt a pull, the familiar calling of the old timeline. The universe with Sherlock. It often called him, pulling him away from whatever and wherever he was at the time. But he couldn’t go back. Not to that one. Not to a universe devoid of the world’s only consulting detective.

But he couldn’t quite place the warmth that came along with the call. The tug at his heart rather than his mind. Here was Mary; pretty, loving, wearing his ring, andyet out there somewhere was Sherlock, sharp, loud, and holding a piece of John’s heart. 

  


Shit. 

He should have seen that coming. 

As he wandered through the years the void remained. That single thought, that single idea that he hadn’t known existed until it was taken away. Here he had Mary, other times he was alone, but all he really wanted was Sherlock. 

Sherlock who had jumped off a roof and thrown John into a whirlwind of timelines and alternate realities—none of which included a madman with a blue scarf. 

And yet still, it seemed, included his brother.

John didn’t even question the black car this time. He just slid inside, barely blinking as Anthea tapped away at the keyboard on her phone. Here he was, without one Holmes and often smothered by the other.

“Ah, John,” Mycroft said, once John had been deposited in the mahogany coated office. 

“Mycroft.”

“How’s Mary?”

“Fine,” John said, sighing wearily and following the grain of leather on the seat of his chair with his finger. 

“You don’t sound too excited about your upcoming nuptials,” Mycroft tutted. “

Yeah, well,” was all John could come up with. 

“Could it perhaps be that another has already stolen your heart?” John looked up at that. 

“Excuse me?” “You heard me perfectly well.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I love Mary.” 

“In this timeline.” 

John blanched. Of course, he might mean something else. He could be making a reference John didn’t understand. No. It was Mycroft. If anyone would know, it was him. 

“Since you were a teenager, yes?” Mycroft continued. John nodded, still not daring to meet the elder Holmes’ eye. “But it seems you’ve been unable to find your way back to my brother.”

John clenched his jaw as Mycroft tsked at him, but finally looked up to meet his eyes.

“How long have you been trying?” 

“Since the fall,” John answered. Obviously. 

“Of course.” Mycroft looked pleased. “About three years?” 

“Give or take.” John said.

Mycroft was smiling now. Smiling. As if he was over and done with Sherlock’s death. As if unaware of the dawning realization that it was Sherlock, not Mary, who John dreamed of at night. As if finding Sherlock was a simple matter of skipping off to another timeline, another universe, and moving on as if nothing had happened. 

“Why are you smiling?” John asked. He reminded himself to unclench his left fist. “Does your brother’s death amuse you? Do you find it funny, my mourning?” 

“John—“ 

“No. I’ve gone along with your little checkups, I’ve let you keep Mary and me safe. I kept going after Sherlock was gone. I tried to find him. Searched every fucking timeline and every single possible corner of every exhausting universe and still I can’t find him. And you sit there, unconcerned, and _smiling_?” Pausing for breath, John bit back the rest of his retort.

It wouldn’t do to go blubbering in front of Mycroft. Sherlock was, as always, on the forefront of his mind. Always too close to the surface, the feelings always too near escaping. But if John spoke them out loud, they would become reality. And losing someone he loved was more than John could handle.

“John, I understand.” 

“No you don’t,” he said, giving a short, bitter laugh. 

“I do. You’ve searched tirelessly for my brother, and I thank you for that.” The tone seemed sincere, but Mycroft had always been an accomplished actor.

“Much good it’s done,” John said. He slumped further in his chair, suddenly exhausted. 

Three years. Three years he’d looked and looked and tried to move on and given up on moving on and tried to move on again. He’d gotten engaged, moved into a new flat, hell, he’d even tried growing a mustache. It was a terrible idea, but not the worst he’d ever had. No, the worst, it seemed, was falling in love with the world’s only consulting detective. 

“But it did,” Mycroft said. His voice was quiet and John looked up at the sudden change in tone. 

“How?”

Mycroft stood from his chair, coming around to John’s side of the desk. “It proved how much you care.” 

“But what’s the use of caring,” John asked, “if the one you care about doesn’t know it?” 

“He does.”

“Sorry?” John tried to find the joke in Mycroft’s voice. There wasn’t one. “Mycroft, what are you talking about?” 

“You haven’t been able to find him anywhere else because he’s always been here,” Mycroft said. 

“No.”

“There’s only one. Only one timeline where the two of you overlap. In all the infinite possibilities, in all of the universes, you two found each other.” 

He couldn’t be serious. Not only was Mycroft saying he knew all about John’s time jumping, but he wasn’t trying to put John in a straightjacket and he was, in fact, suggesting that he knew quite a bit more about it than John did himself. 

“But he’s dead. If there’s only one chance, we lost it,” John said, shaking his head.

“No. He’s not.”

“I watched him jump. He made me watch.” 

“So you would believe him,” Mycroft said, eyes intent on John, though John wouldn’t meet them. They burned, John could feel them. “So he could hunt down Moriarty’s network, kill them all down to the last man. He brought down the entire system, John.” 

“Why would he do that?” John asked. And why wouldn’t he let me come with him, he thought. 

“To save you.” 

John thought about that. Sherlock jumping to save John’s life…most would tell him Sherlock couldn’t perform such a selfless act. But they had been…bonded. John hadn’t quite understood to what extent at the time but maybe…maybe Sherlock had. He was always better at seeing things than John. But if Sherlock was alive? Why hadn’t he told John sooner? Why would he hide, stay away for three years? But more importantly, how? How could he survive jumping off the roof of St. Bart’s? 

“How?” John found himself whispering. 

“Ask him.”

John looked up, following Mycroft’s gaze to the office door.

Sherlock was there. 

Sherlock was _there_. 

  


John nearly tripped over the chair in his haste to stand up. Rushing to the door, he stopped a few feet in front of the detective, his hands nearly shaking with the desire to touch him, but his mind held his body sway as his eyes ravenously swept over Sherlock.

There was no way he could be real, yet there he was. A bit more haggard, a bit more rumpled. His hair was longer, dark curls sweeping past his ears and hanging across his forehead. His cheekbones stood out in even sharper relief, skin sallow. He was wearing the Belstaff, free of bloodstains, though his shoulders were more hunched than before. And yet his eyes. Those brilliantly ice blue eyes were the same. Still latching onto John’s and making the entire world fade away. Captivating. That’s how John always described Sherlock’s eyes. It wasn’t until now that he realized how true it was.

“John.” The deep voice resounded through John’s entire body, connecting to his soul, and he flung himself at it, wrapping his arms around the detective and pressing his nose into Sherlock’s neck. He felt Sherlock sigh, body going loose as thin arms wound their way around John’s back. 

“You’re alive,” John said, voice muffled by warm skin. 

“Yes.” 

They stood like that, John fighting back tears and Sherlock clinging for dear life. At the moment, it didn’t feel like Heaven or Hell could pull them apart. 

But apparently Mycroft could. 

At the small “ahem,” John pulled back, releasing Sherlock from his hold. The detective frowned, hands dropping limply to his sides. They hung awkward, empty. John felt his own limbs, their loss of connection, and sympathized. The ice blue gaze never left John’s face. 

Until John punched him. 

“You utter bastard,” he snarled, watching as Sherlock staggered back, hand to his mouth. He didn’t look very surprised as he wiped the blood away. Apparently John was no longer avoiding his teeth. “I thought you were dead.” 

“John.” 

“I looked for you,” John said, unsure how much Sherlock knew. “I searched everywhere. Every possibility…and you were just…gone.” 

“John, I—“ 

“Three years, Sherlock. Three fucking years without you. Do you know what that did to me?” He had raised his voice to a shout, but couldn’t be bothered to lower it again.

“Please forgive me, I—“ 

But the detective’s apology was cut short when John grabbed him again, twining his hands into the fabric of the Belstaff and crushing his lips against Sherlock’s. There was the taste of blood and hesitation and stiffness and then there was a sigh and utter collapse as Sherlock responded, sagging against John and wrapping his arms around him once more.

Eventually they pulled apart, breathing ragged as they rested their foreheads together. John kept his eyes closed, knowing that if he looked at Sherlock now he would lose all focus entirely. He’d already forgotten that Mycroft was in the room more than once.

“Bastard,” he muttered. 

Sherlock gave a dark chuckle but pulled John even closer. “Apologies.” 

“Yes, lots of those,” John said. He opened his eyes, pulling back just enough to look at Sherlock. “You look like shit.”

“And you can travel in time. Nifty, that.” 

“I’m not the Doctor,” John said, “it’s just my own timeline.”

“Just your own? Pity.” John kissed him again. “Yes,” he said. “And you better stay in it.” 


End file.
